The Legacy of Michael Jordan

Let me get something out of the way here: I am a Chicago Bulls fan. This isn’t because I’m from Chicago (I’m not) nor do I have any relatives there (in fact I’ve never been there except 2 layovers at Midway last February). To be honest, I don’t consider the Bulls as my main basketball team or even my second favorite. I actually didn’t really root for the Bulls or pay attention to them from about 1998 until 2008. That should be pretty telling for where the rest of this article is going… but I digress.

The reason that I consider myself a Chicago Bulls fan (along with about 99% of kids who grew up in the ’90s) is because of the unmistakable greatness that was/is Michael Jordan. When I was growing up he was just getting into his double threepete championship stride. My friends had posters of him on the walls. I had a mini basketball with bulls colors, a large “24” with a fake MJ signature, and always wanted to call my team the “Jordans” no matter who I was playing with (I was also about 6 when I did that and it made a lot of sense at the time). It didn’t matter to me (or anyone else) what team we were raised to root for. We were all Bulls fans in the ’90s (ok we were probably all just Jordan fans but he played for Chicago and that was good enough for us).

I also remember where I was when he retired the second time in 1998 (I was still a bit too young the first time); out to dinner at an Applebee’s when my dad took me over to the bar TV’s because he saw from afar that the hero of my generation was leaving the game of basketball forever. (At the time we thought forever, and for the purposes of this article it was. Not that I wasn’t thrilled when he came back a second time on the Wizards, but It’s nice to imagine that he ended his career after a second threepete with Chicago instead of thinking about how rusty he really looked years later). It was a sad day in the world of Michael (and the NBA… That’s more important isn’t it…).

Plenty of questions were raised. Who was going to replace MJ as alpha dog of the NBA? (At this point Kobe Bryant). What would happen to the Bulls franchise without him? (They would flounder for over ten years until a new talent came along… more on that later) Would we ever see a better basketball player in our lifetime? (No, and in the immortal words of Bill Simmons, “We need to stop looking”).

So what does this mean for the rest of us? I know for a fact that I am not the only one still affected by this. Everyone I know from my generation and up still remembers (and still feels) Michael Jordan obsession. We go to youtube to watch old highlights of his greatness, tell stories about watching the Flu Game (my favorite NBA game ever), and I doubt I’m the only person who remembers exactly where they were the day he retired.

I ahve a good story to  illustrate how great No. 23’s* mystique still is even today. I was lucky enough to go to UCF, the school his son Marcus* chose to play college ball at. Because of this Jordan has attended quite a few games, always sitting in the same box. Everyone looks there and everyone wishes they could be sitting next to him. After Marcus’s first UCF home game (which I was at, btw) MJ was approached by a news team for an interview, followed quickly by hundreds of college students hoping to catch a glimpse of the greatest basketball player ever. I even got a crude cell phone picture. Here it is.

Proof that I've been within 5 feet of Michael Jordan

But if he’s not on the Bulls anymore why do we care? Why should we? Who knows. Honestly it’s probably just a generational thing. Those who were already adults in the ’90s probably feel no real connection with the franchise and just remember it’s glory days normally. For those my age, however, it’s slightly different. We weren’t just rooting for the Bulls and Michael Jordan. We felt connected. We all wanted to imitate him. We loved him and his team.

It is that last statement that keeps me (and many other non-Chicagoans) fans of the bulls right now. They now have a new talented player (Derrick Rose, who still hasn’t hit his ceiling) and there’s something innately exciting about that for my generation. We want to see the Bulls great again. We don’t want another MJ, but we want that franchise to be at the top like we remember. The bulls won 6 of the first 11 championships I was alive for, dominating the ’90s with an iron fist. I don;t know about you, but I just cannot shake that love of the Chicago Bulls and probably never will. All because of one man. Michael Jordan.

*I think it’s amazing that every basketball fan knows Jordan purely from his now iconic jersey number. Can you name any other player who truly can be identified that way by anybody other than their team’s fans? Jackie Robinson doesn’t count here because his number was retired by all of baseball and there’s one day a year where (called Jackie Robinson day oddly enough) where ever player can (and usually does) where the number 42 in his honor.